


when all I have is your name

by SEMellark



Series: When All I Have Is Your Name [1]
Category: Free!
Genre: Depression, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Psychological Manipulation, referenced suicide attempts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-02-21
Packaged: 2018-03-14 08:29:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3403853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SEMellark/pseuds/SEMellark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Teenage suicide rates are sky-rocketing. To most, Nanase Haruka is just another figure to calculate, even if he hasn't technically done anything yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when all I have is your name

**Author's Note:**

> Based on Suzanne Young's YA novel "The Program." It's truly a difficult story to read.
> 
> Basically, teenage suicide sky-rockets and the absolutely awesome adults watch the teenagers excessively. If they even suspect that someone is depressed or is considering suicide, they take them to The Program and proceed to wipe away any trace of who the person once was to keep them from killing themselves.
> 
> Totally awesome solution, right? Couldn't possibly go wrong OR harm their "patients."

There is much sadness in life.

Haruka knows this. He accepts it. He lives it.

But he wishes for all the world that things could be different.

“The guards are coming.” Someone near the front of the room mutters. “Bet you anything they’re coming for _him._ ”

Miss Amakata shushes the speaker with alarm in her eyes, and in his desk beside Haruka, Makoto stiffens considerably. Haruka himself turns his gaze to the window, staring firmly up at the sky.

“Haru.” Makoto is whispering now, breaching protocol. They’re not supposed to acknowledge it when the guards come knocking. “Haru, what did you do?”

There are two of them, bulky men in white uniforms with unreadable expressions on pale faces. Haruka sees their reflections in the window and doesn’t so much as flinch as they move through the room silently, efficiently, their cold gazes set solely on him.

He’s known for a while that this had been coming, and he doesn’t put up a fight as others have in the past as the guards come to stand on either side of him.

Haruka stands up without a word.

Miss Amakata continues with the lesson.

“Wait.” Haruka doesn’t look at Makoto as he heads for the door, still flanked by the guards. The sound of a chair grating against the floor hurts Haruka’s ears, and the man on his right falls back to, presumably, stop Makoto from following. “Wait, you _can’t_ take him!”

“Turn to page seventy-five, class. Makoto, would you please read – “

“I promise he isn’t at that point yet!” Haruka has never heard Makoto shout like this before. He almost turns to tell him to calm down but realizes what a wasted effort it would be and refrains. “No matter what Haru says, he would never kill himself!”

Haruka leaves that classroom with a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach, escorted by one guard while the other subdues his frantic best friend.

“You sure have him fooled, don’t you, kid?” The man says tersely, and Haruka refuses to look at him. “You’re just like the rest. I can see it in your eyes.”

“Yeah.” Haruka says dully. He can still hear Makoto’s voice at his back even as he is led away. “He won’t see what he doesn’t want to.”

But it’s no fault of Makoto’s.

Because he is happy… and Haruka is not.

* * *

They keep him quarantined for a while. They ask him how he let himself get so bad.

At first, Haruka won’t tell them. His dreams are haunted by Makoto’s furious denial of Haruka’s true nature, so he doesn’t get much sleep and is therefore more irritable than usual.

They take this as a sign of defiance and up his dosage. Only then is he more open to discussion.

“My grandmother died when I was seven.” Haruka’s therapist nods his head and takes notes on a clipboard. Haruka hates the thing and always wants to throw it out the nearest window. “I think that’s when it started.”

“Death is a common predecessor to depression. It happens more often in kids your age than anyone tends to realize.” Haruka frowns but says nothing. “That face you made just now… You don’t enjoy being referred to as a kid?”

“Not particularly. Kids shouldn’t be forced to deal with something like that on their own.” Haruka is surprised by his own lack of restraint. He knows the medicine they give him makes it nearly impossible to not speak his mind, but this is something he’s never told anyone before, not even Makoto. “I’ve been an adult since… “

His therapist leans forward. Haruka stares at him, at the bump in his crooked nose and the lack of warmth in his eyes. Everything about this is so clinical, and it makes the teenager feel physically ill. “Since… ? Please go on, Haru.”

Haruka sets his jaw. “Don’t call me that.”

“But it says in your file that is what you prefer to be called.”

“Only my close friends can call me that.” Not for the first time, Haruka feels a pang of loneliness in his stomach. He longs to be rid of this place, to eat lunch with Nagisa and Rei, walk home with Makoto. “I don’t feel like talking anymore.”

The man tsks with disappointment and sits back in his chair, scribbling something else in his forsaken clipboard. “That really is a shame. And to think we were making such progress, Haru.”

Haruka does as he’s been itching to do for days and throws the man’s clipboard out the window.

* * *

He meets another boy once he’s no longer considered infectious and is let out of quarantine.

“This place fucking bites.” His name is Rin. Just Rin. He won’t disclose his full identity and Haruka won’t ask. He doubts he’ll remember Rin by the end of this anyway, if the rumors are to be believed. “If they want me to stop being depressed, I need some real goddamn food.”

“Why do you swear so much?” Haruka asks. He was never around anyone so lucid in tongue and isn’t used to the vulgarity.

Rin rolls his eyes, pushing his food around on his lunch tray with a plastic spoon. They aren’t given real utensils for fear that they might hurt themselves with them. “They’ve already taken enough from me. I can’t even express how pissed off I am what with all these rules and group therapy sessions. If I can’t even swear, then I might as well sign over my rights as a human being."

“Okay.”

“You’re fuckin’ weird.” Rin states. They’re the only two sitting at the table. Haruka has noticed that the others give them a wide berth, though he isn’t sure why. Rin doesn’t seem all that bad, disagreeable though he may be. “You just sit around with that blank look on your face all the time. Pisses me off.”

“Why does it matter?”

Something about Rin’s expression falters. For a moment, he looks just as sad as everyone else in The Program. “I don’t know. It just does.”

Haruka questions him no further.

* * *

They take the small things first, just to see if it works on him.

Slowly, Haruka loses bits of himself. He can’t recall which side of the bed he prefers, or how he likes his mackerel, or even the name of his high school.

And after a few months, Haruka finds that he doesn’t remember what his grandmother looked like.

He’s known for a long time that those who run The Program eventually start to take the memories of their patients, but he figured that he would notice when it started happening and take measures to stop the process.

But Haruka is powerless against the drugs of The Program. They are administered with the intent of erasing whatever memories caused a person to be depressed in the first place, but Haruka doesn’t want to forget his grandmother. He would never wish her memory erased, no matter how much pain it brings him.

So, he refuses his pills, as they are designed to widdle away at the aspects of his life he talks about in his sessions and erase them from his mind. The nurses are used to him being complacent and are thrown when Haruka refuses to open his mouth at their prompting. After hours of struggle, they finally call in his therapist.

“I hear you’re causing problems today, Haru.” Haruka glares at the man hatefully, picking at the fabric of the white pants they make him wear. “You have to take your medicine, you know.”

“I don’t want to forget her.” Haruka snaps. “I won’t let you take her from me.”

“But she’s the reason you’re sad. She’s the reason you’re here.”

“Shut up!” Haruka shoots to his feet. The nurses behind his therapist shrink back at the sight of whatever must be present on his face. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

The man purses his lips. He taps the fingers of his writing hand against his thigh in a slow rhythm. “If you aren’t careful, you’ll be quarantined again.”

“I don’t care.” Haruka shoots back scathingly. He shakes at the truth of it. “I don’t.”

His therapist sighs. “And therein lies the problem, Haru.”

* * *

He wants Makoto. Wants him badly.

His voice. His warmth. His hand to hold and his cheerfulness to admonish.

They weren’t together before and Haruka agonizes over it now that they’re separated. He doesn’t understand why he never made a move on Makoto, why Makoto never made a move on him.

Alone in his little room, Haruka thinks they would have made sense. And that means a lot, because nothing ever makes sense to him.

Makoto knew he’d been sad and had tried to help him hide it. He did whatever he could to convince people that Haruka was just shy, that he didn’t express emotion well, that he was not and never had been depressed or suicidal.

Even when the guards came for him, Makoto never faltered. Or maybe he had lied about Haruka’s state of mind so often that he’d started to believe it himself.

Haruka doesn’t remember being happy, but he does recall being content with Tachibana Makoto.

And if he forgets that, Haruka doesn’t know what he’ll do.

* * *

“Can you tell me about your parents, Haru?”

“There isn’t much to say.” Haruka has carefully avoided the subject of his parents since he arrived. Considering everything, perhaps he should have mentioned them first. “I hardly know them.”

“It says here that you were living on your own when you were brought here?”

“Yeah.” An ancient feeling of resentment starts to boil to the surface, but Haruka’s pills are mostly successful in suppressing it. “They left after… “

Haruka is stumped at this. He doesn’t remember when his parents left or why. He guesses The Program already took that memory from him.

His therapist fills the silence brought on by Haruka’s confusion. “You were hurt by their leaving, weren’t you? You were upset that they abandoned you.”

“Thanks for summing that up.” Haruka says scathingly, and the man sitting across from him nods decisively.

“I can understand your anger. Your parents shouldn’t have left you as they did. I can only imagine how lonely that must’ve been.”

“The house was so quiet.” Haruka murmurs. These memories, at least, he is all too happy to give away. “There was an echo when I walked. I hated it.”

“How did you handle it?”

“Nagisa came over often.” Haruka almost smiles. “He can fill any silence.”

“Ah, yes. Hazuki Nagisa, was it? He was mentioned once or twice in your file.”

Haruka feels a sense of apprehension at this. He doesn’t want this man or anyone from The Program anywhere near Nagisa. “He’s a dear friend of mine.”

“Of course, Haru.” His therapist says, and Haruka frowns, filled with unease.

* * *

Rin seems to isolate himself from the others. Haruka manages to gather that much from the astonishment of the other patients when Rin seeks Haruka out of his own volition.

“Why do they stare so much?” Haruka mutters, side-eyeing two girls who continuously shoot them glances. They look younger than Haruka, and the blue-eyed teenager briefly wonders what happened that caused them to be taken away. “Is it that weird for you to socialize?”

“Maybe. I don’t know.” Rin picks at his nails, blowing strands of red hair out of his eyes when they get in the way. “You don’t piss me off as much as the rest.”

“Thanks.” Haruka says blandly. He rolls the dice, watches them bounce off the wall. “Snake eyes. I get your dessert at dinner.”

“Son of a bitch.” Rin exclaims. “That’s the fifth time this month!”

Haruka shrugs. “Guess I’m just lucky.”

Rin huffs at that, but his lips twitch as if he’s fighting off a smile. “Lucky, huh? You really think that?”

Haruka actually considers this. He thinks about his pills, the gaps in his memory, the twittering girls and the scars the both of them sport.

“Never mind.” Haruka says, tossing the dice to Rin. “Your turn.”

“Alright, babies.” Rin says, cupping the dice in the palms of his hands reverently. “Win Daddy back his stale brownie.”

Haruka snorts.

Rin ends up rolling a two and a five. Seven.

“I think that was Nagisa’s favorite number.” Haruka says suddenly.

“Hmm? Who’s that?”

Haruka can’t answer him. He doesn’t know.

* * *

The Program has taken a lot from Haruka. He knows things are missing although he can’t discern _what,_ and since he never told Rin about his life before, there is no one to remind him.

But no matter how hard they try, Haruka won’t let them have Makoto. He never brings his friend up of his own volition, and when asked about any acquaintances he might have had, Haruka fights against his artificially induced urge to speak the truth.

He keeps the memories of Makoto close to his heart. They keep him company at night when the door to Haruka’s room is locked from the outside, and they get him through the day when it becomes increasingly difficult to go on.

They say that they’ve successfully managed to erase all the memories that made him diseased, and yet he isn’t getting any better. They know that Haruka is keeping something to himself.

The adults say they can’t help Haruka if he won’t help himself.

Haruka thinks he would rather die than forget the color of Makoto’s eyes.

“I want to tell you something.”

Rin glances at him warily. They’re sitting in a circle of chairs with a few of the other patients, waiting for their group therapy session to start. The nurses are standing nearby, so Haruka has to speak quietly.

“Tachibana Makoto.” Haruka murmurs so only Rin can hear. “I don’t want to forget him. You have to remind me everyday.”

Rin doesn’t say anything for a while, and Haruka wonders if the other boy will deny him this until he says, “Matsuoka Gou.” Haruka stares at his lap and waits for Rin to go on. “I’ll remember Tachibana for you, so you remember her for me.”

Haruka nods, though he would like more time to recount to Rin who exactly Makoto is and learn about Matsuoka Gou.

The session finally commences.

* * *

Something seems odd about his therapist when Haruka walks into his office. He seems more alert than usual, almost radiates an intense sense of purpose, and Haruka is put off by it.

“Do you know how long you’ve been here, Haru?” He asks as soon as Haruka sits down.

“Eight months.”

“Do you remember the day you were brought in?”

“Not really.” Haruka lies. He lies with everything he has and covers his tracks. He _won’t_ forget about that day. “It’s a bit of a blur.”

“Tachibana Makoto seemed to care for you a great deal.” The man says. Haruka refuses to react. “The guards had a difficult time subduing him.”

Still, Haruka says nothing.

“You shouldn’t cling to him as you are.” The therapist’s tone and expression are admonishing. Haruka wishes he knew his name so he could curse him long after he leaves this place. “He’s why you’re so unhappy.”

The bastard couldn’t be more wrong if he tried. Haruka doesn’t know happiness, but he knows Makoto, and he’s as close as it’s going to get.

“He allowed you to get worse. He saw what you were and still didn’t contact The Program. He enabled you, Haru, and you can’t even see it.”

Haruka wavers. To hear someone so blatantly misjudge Makoto’s character is more than he can bear. “No, you’re – “

_“Wait.”_

Haruka jumps.

_“Wait, you can’t take him!”_

Makoto’s voice is suddenly pouring into the room, radiating from speakers Haruka can’t see, and he stares at his therapist, eyes wide, mouth slightly parted in abject horror.

_“I promise he isn’t at that point yet!”_

“See, Haru. He lied to the guards. He lied to The Program.”

“Stop.” Haruka manages to say. His voice is impossibly hoarse.

_“No matter what Haru says, he would never kill himself!”_

“He didn’t want you to get better. He was the one driving you to the edge.”

“No, no he wasn’t!” Haruka exclaims, beginning to panic, because his resolve is crumbling. He doesn’t know enough, doesn’t _remember_ enough, can’t tell if what his therapist says is true because he can’t recall why he’d been so sad or how he’d gotten to that point. All he remembers is Makoto. “He’s my best friend, I _love_ him – “

_“No matter what Haru says, he would never kill himself!”_

“Turn it off!” Haruka shouts. He curls into himself, covering his ears and pushing his forehead into his knee. “Turn it off, turn it off, _turn it off_!”

_“ – he would never kill himself!”_

“I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t, I _promised_ him!”

_“ – never kill himself!”_

“If it weren’t for him – “

_“ – kill himself!”_

“If it weren’t for Makoto, I would’ve – “

His therapist watches him, a small smile on his face, a remote in his hand. “If it weren’t for Tachibana Makoto, you would have been happy, Haru.”

* * *

Rin regards him with alarm the next time they see one another. “You look like shit.”

“Thanks.” Haruka says. His throat is raw and his voice cracks whenever he speaks. He doesn’t know what happened, just woke up in his room with his cup of pills lying next to him like always. But something feels off. He feels like too much time has passed since he last left his room. “I feel like it, too."

Neither of them will touch their breakfast. For a long while, they just stare at each other. The cafeteria is loud. The number of patients has increased in the past couple of weeks.

“Do you remember our promise?” Rin asks. He looks uncertain.

Haruka blinks. “You mean… Yes. Yes, I remember.”

“You go first.” Something about Rin’s eyes is panicked.

“Matsuoka Gou.”

“Tachibana Makoto.”

Again, they stare at each other.

“Do you remember who that person is?” Rin asks eventually.

Haruka is finally starting to realize why Rin looks so upset. “… No. Do you?”

Rin shakes his head.

And while they both cry, it is not for what they themselves have lost, but for the losses of the other.

For Haruka remembers Matsuoka Gou while Rin doesn't.

And for Haruka, Rin remembers Tachibana Makoto, whoever that may be.

* * *

His parents come for him after a year. Haruka is glad to see them, and he smiles and lets his mother cry while she hugs him. His father doesn’t try to touch him, though his eyes speak of happiness, and Haruka finds that it’s enough.

“Your son has done exceptionally well here.” His therapist speaks directly to his parents while Haruka stands by. He wishes he could say goodbye to Rin, but the redhead has been in solitary confinement for a few days after a fifth suicide attempt. “Any traces of illness have been completely eradicated. Haru will live a long and happy life.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much.” Haruka’s mother says through her tears. She won’t let go of Haruka’s hand. “Already, I can see a change in him.”

“It was touch and go for a while.” His therapist says, to which Haruka nods. “But unlike other patients I’ve had, he was willing to better himself. I couldn’t be more proud of his recovery.”

He smiles at Haruka, and while the teenager smiles back, he isn’t fooled. Rin was adamant that Haruka not trust anybody in The Program, and while Haruka doesn’t quite understand why, he’ll trust his friend’s judgment.

But while Haruka may not trust these people explicitly, he is grateful to them for helping him recover.

“Thank you.” Haruka says as his parents head for the door. “I’m sorry to say this, but I never did manage to learn your name.”

The man laughs. “I’m just known as Sasabe around here. You take care of yourself, Haru.”

And for the first time in a year, Haruka steps outside.

* * *

He doesn’t go back to school right away. His parents keep him home, keep him close, and Haruka doesn’t fight it.

Truthfully, he’s just glad to be home. He missed his parents while he was away, and it seems obvious that they missed him, too. His mother barely gives him any time to himself, though Haruka can’t bring himself to complain.

But despite the cheerful air of the house, Haruka can’t help but feel as if something is out of place. Sometimes he wakes up and expects to be alone, only to find his parents in the kitchen when he goes downstairs. His mother often forgets where things are in the house, as if she hasn’t spent a lot of time there, and his father moves about just as awkwardly.

Haruka convinces himself that he’s imagining things, or that the three of them are just relearning how to be a family.

He can’t return to his old school. His parents say it will only make him relapse, and it’s the last thing Haruka wants.

Instead, he is sent to Samezuka Academy, a place where teenagers like himself – graduates of The Program – continue their education. By all accounts, Haruka should have graduated, but he lost an entire year of schooling while being treated and has to repeat his third year, which was cut short.

The school isn’t all bad. He meets Mikoshiba Momotarou on the first day, a boy with more scars to his name than even he knows, and he wears multiple layers on the hottest days to keep them all covered.

There are others, a girl who takes her pills like they’re candy named Chigusa, and a boy Momotarou calls “Ai” who doesn’t really like to socialize with others.

Haruka wonders if they were people he would have associated with before he entered The Program, though in the end, it doesn’t really matter, for he’ll never remember.

Rin shows up a few months into the school year. He seems to be in higher spirits than when Haruka saw him last, and they reunite on better terms than they had parted, with the same friendly banter they maintained in their months spent in The Program.

“Everything sucked after you left.” Rin recounted on that first day. “There was no one to gamble with.”

“What a shame. And you were so good at it, too.”

“Shut the fuck up, Nanase.”

They each remember their promise, though neither chooses to act upon it. It doesn’t seem as important now that they’ve been released from The Program, and Haruka and Rin are as content as they can be with their lives.

Haruka doesn’t remember being as put out as his parents recounted him to be, and frankly, he never wants to go back to that place. He’ll take the happiness he’s been given without question. Perhaps that was his problem in the first place.

“Tachibana Makoto.” Rin can’t help but try at least once. “It really doesn’t ring any bells?”

Haruka shakes his head, though he isn’t bothered. “None. But what about you with Matsuoka Gou?”

“I don’t even know, man. I thought maybe I had a brother, but I asked my mom about it, and she said I’m an only child. I just – “ Rin pauses. Ai is shrieking in some far end of the classroom about a bug Momotarou brought inside, but Rin doesn’t seem to be paying attention to them as he frowns over at Haruka. “Why would I ask you to remember that for me? I don’t get it.”

Haruka can’t answer that. While he still remembers the name of Rin’s special person, he doesn’t know exactly why Rin should remember them, so he won’t be of any help.

On his end, Haruka thinks he’ll always be haunted by the enigma that is Tachibana Makoto, but whenever Rin says the name, Haruka becomes unfathomably upset.

The name makes him sick to his stomach. It’s a trigger he cannot remember and cannot shake.

“I really don’t think it matters.” Haruka says, turning his gaze to the window. “If they were worth remembering, we wouldn’t have forgotten.”

“But they take our memories, right? To protect us? How could we possibly fight that?”

Haruka sighs. “They only take the memories that hurt us, Rin. Forgetting was probably for the better.”

“Yeah.” Rin says, though he doesn’t seem satisfied, picking at his nails almost anxiously. “I guess you’re right, Haru.”

Haruka doesn’t know what else the guy could ask for. They’re alive. They’re happy. And if they lost pieces of themselves along the way, well… is it really so bad, if this is the end result?

“You know, if we did have a problem with having our memories taken,” Haruka says, turning back to Rin with a quirked smile, “I don’t remember it.”

And they laugh.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm starting to think I'm a fucked up individual for writing shit like this.


End file.
